PHILADELPHIA Eagles linebacker Reggie Wilkes visited Drexel
University in Philadelphia one spring to learn more about its master's program in
biomedical engineering, which he thought he might enter. Wilkes stopped by the
laboratory where veterinarian Stephen Dubin keeps a variety of animals and introduced
himself: "Hi, I'm Reggie Wilkes. I play with the Eagles."
"Well," replied Dubin, "we don't have any eagles, but you're welcome to
play with anything else we've got."

"ELMER, why don't you play golf with Ted anymore?"
asked a friend.
"Would you play golf with a fellow who moved the ball with his foot when you weren't
watching?" Elmer asked.
"Well, no," admitted the friend.
"Neither will Ted," replied Elmer.

WIFE
: What's your excuse for coming home at this time of the night? Husband : Golfing with friends , my dear.
Wife : What?! At 2 a.m.?!
Husband : Yes . We used night clubs.

The revelation that golf carts do not have four-wheel drive
came to me one morning as I tried to find my ball in the mud, which I found out later was actually not part of the golf course at all but
rather the site of a pending condo project, half a block away. I must have
missed the out-of-bounds marker when I was crossing the freeway. It was just one more lesson in the complex world of golf.
I remember the first time I played. My twosome was paired up
with another twosome. After my tee-off on the first hole went somewhat awry, landing on the clubhouse roof, one of the other
players asked if I had a handicap. I thought his joke in poor taste and threatened him with my
9-iron. Now, of course, I realize that having a handicap is a good thing, even if it is 52.
Learning the rules and language of golf is crucial. It separates
the obvious beginning from someone just having another bad day. Therefore,
I have from experience compiled a few lessons that may help other novices.
If the instructor tells you to address the ball, do not take out a
pen and write "to green" on the ball.
Try not to stand on asphalt in the summer while wearing golf shoes,
unless you are with a very strong friend.
The easiest way to find a lost golf ball is to ask the guy limping
in the next fairway.
Never insist that your spouse play golf. It can lead to only two
results.
One, she/he plays really badly, complains for four hours and ruins your whole
day. Or, he/she plays really well, offers four hours of suggestions on how
you might do better and ruins your whole day.
A double bogey is not a strong drink from the movie Casablanca. It
means two over par. And not a bad score at all. If they have a name for it
it's a good score. There is no name for a fifteen.
A chip is not something left behind by a foraging cow. That's a
flap. A chip is a carefully choreographed half-swing that often goes further
than your original drive.
A divot is a lump of grass that flies up from where the golf ball
used to be.
A damnit is a lump of grass that flies up in your face as you hit two
feet behind the ball.
A slice is a ball that curves to the right. A bad slice is a ball
that lands behind you.
A tough lie has double meanings. It's when you have to come up
with an excuse - for the umpteenth time - as to why it took six hours to play nine holes and why your breath smells like nacho chips and beer.
It also refers to a difficult spot to have to hit your ball from. For instance, the base
of a tree, the crook of a tree or the upper branches of a tree.
Heavy rough is the area along the edge of the fairway just before
your ball is legally out of bounds. A good rule of thumb - if the guy beside
you is barbecuing, you're probably out of bounds.
And finally, Club Rules imply that you are not penalized by foreign
objects on the fairway. Therefore, if you knock out a tourist with your drive,
you are allowed to move your ball one club's length from the body.
Now that you understand some of the basics, you should be able to
better appreciate the game. And, you can focus on some of the more intriguing idiosyncrasies of golf, like if it's completely made out of
metal, why do they call it a 3-wood?

The psychology instructor had just finished a lecture on mental
health and was giving an oral test. Speaking about a specific condition, she asked, "How would you
diagnose a patient who walks back and forth screaming at the top of his lungs one minute, then sits in a chair weeping
uncontrollably the next?" A young man in the rear raised his hand and answered, "A
basketball coach?"

THE BASKETBALL coach stormed into the university president's
office and demanded a raise right then and there.
"Please," protested the college President, "you already make more than the entire History department."
"Yeah, maybe so, but you don't know what I have to put up with," the coach blustered. "Look."
He went out into the hall and grabbed a jock who was jogging down the hallway. "Run over to my office and see if I'm
there," he ordered. Twenty minutes later the jock returned, sweaty and out of
breath.
"You're not there, sir," he reported.
"Oh, I see what you mean," conceded the President, scratching
his head. "I would have phoned."

A couple of women were playing
golf one sunny Saturday morning. The first of the twosome teed off and watched in horror
as her ball headed directly toward a foursome of men playing the next hole. Indeed, the
ball hit one of the men, and he immediately clasped his hands together at his crotch, fell
to the ground and proceeded to roll around in evident agony. The woman rushed down to the
man and immediately began to apologize. She said, "Please allow me to help. I'm a
physical therapist and I know I could relieve your pain if you'd allow." "Ummph,
oooh, nnooo, I'll be all right . . . I'll be fine in a few minutes," he replied
breathlessly as he remained in the fetal position still clasping his hands together at his
crotch. But she persisted, and he finally allowed her to help him. She gently took his
hands away and laid them to the side, she loosened his pants, and she put her hands
inside. She began to massage him. She then asked him, "How does that feel?" To
which he replied, "It feels great, but my thumb still hurts like hell."

PLANNING his first serious fishing trip, my husband was questioning the shop's salesman
about the merits of many of the hundreds of flies available for fly casting. The salesman
selected a silver-tipped beauty and said, "I think this one is my best fly."
"Why?" asked my husband. "I don't know why," the salesman answered,
"but you can't put it on your hook unless you turn your back to the pond." The
sale was made.

A FEW years ago, I coordinated the track-and-field program in a small community. In
order for the children to participate, their parents had to fill out a liability form,
freeing the coaches from responsibility for injuries. As I was going over the forms, a
note caught my eye. After signing for his son, a father had written: "Will you waive
any damages you incur from him?"

AS A ski instructor, I sometimes tease my little pupils. Once I told seven year old
Luke that if my skis were faster than his, it was because I'd waxed them with butter. The
next morning his grandmother came to class with him. She took me aside and said, "We
had no butter left for breakfast. Luke had spread it all over his skis, claiming that it
was the proper way to wax them. I think you should tell the children that instead of
listening to nonsense from other beginners, they should only take advice from their
teacher."

WHEN I accepted a job as a tennis pro in an affluent Los Angeles suburb, one of my
first students was a young girl who was learning how to keep score. Winning the first
point of her service game, she stammered, "Uh, fifteen-um," forgetting that love
is the term for zero in tennis. "What makes the world go around?" I asked,
hoping to jog her memory. Without any hesitation she responded, "Oh,
fifteen-money."

GAME warden Mike Zetts was checking on fishermen and spotted, on an angler's stringer,
a pike that looked on the puny side of legal. "I guess that's your fish," Zetts
said to the man. "Not exactly," the angler replied. "Looks a little small
to me," said Zetts. "Yeah, he probably is," replied the angler. "I
caught the rascal three or four times and threw him back. He finally bothered me so much
that I had to tie him up just so I could fish in peace."

AS A community service, my wife supervises the operation of
the canteen and pro shop at our golf course in Deloraine, Man. Since her responsibilities
include the purchasing for the club, she asked me to buy nine dozen golf balls when I next
went into the city. As I stood at the counter waiting to pick up my order, the fellow
standing next to me said, "Boy, if I were you, I'd correct my slice."

AT A hockey game, I was rink-side when one of the players
rammed into the boards. As he struggled to regain his balance, he gasped, "There must
be an easier way to make a living."
"I'll trade jobs," I retorted.
"What do you do?" he queried.
"I teach Grade 6."
"Forget it," he said, and was gone.

AFTER making a few pastoral calls at the local hospital, I
got on the crowded elevator to head for the lobby. A young man, grinning broadly, was
passing around a photograph. Amid appreciative smiles someone asked for the weight.
"Six-and-a-half pounds!" the young man exclaimed.
"Congratulations," I interjected. "Boy or girl?" His grin spread
even farther. "Bass," he said.

OVER the years my husband has retained much of his athletic
ability by playing basketball. The majority of his team members are in their late teens
and early 20s. This never bothered him until he was reprimanded during a game. The young
referee said politely but firmly, "That's a foul, sir!"

OUR four-year-old grandson, wearing his new skates and
helmet, crawled onto the ice rink. With hockey stick in both hands, he attempted to stand
on his skates; his third attempt was successful. The puck lay at his feet, and his stick
was poised for a slap shot. Slowly he lowered his stick, straightened to his full 30
inches, then in a strong, slightly off-key voice sang: "O Canada, our home and native
Land."

ACCOMPANIED by his mother, my five-year-old nephew,
Brocke,
was attending his first Edmonton Oilers hockey game. No sooner had the game begun, when
the woman sitting next to them rolled up her program and, using it as a megaphone, shouted
arguably violent advice to the Oilers and heaped profane abuse on the opposition. With
wide eyes, Brocke was equally fascinated with the game and the woman. It wasn't too long
before he rolled up his own program and offered the Oilers his own advice: "Be
gentle, Edmonton."

This guy is stranded on a desert island, all
alone for ten years. One day, he sees a speck in the horizon. He thinks to himself,
"It's not a ship." The speck gets a little closer and he thinks,
"It's not a boat." The speck gets even closer and he thinks, "It's
not a raft." Then, out of the surf comes this gorgeous blonde woman, wearing a wet
suit and scuba gear. She comes up to the guy and says, "How long has it been since
you've had a cigarette?"
"Ten years! ", he says.
She reaches over and unzips a waterproof pocket on her left sleeve and pulls
out a pack of fresh cigarettes. He takes one, lights it, takes a long drag, and says,
"Man, oh man! Is that good!" Then she asked, "How long has it been
since you've had a drink of whiskey?"
He replies, "Ten years! "
She reaches over, unzips her waterproof pocket on her right sleeve, pulls out
a flask and gives it to him. He takes a long swig and says, "Wow, that's
fantastic!"
Then she starts unzipping this long zipper that runs down the front of her
wet suit and she says to him, "And how long has it been since you've had some REAL
fun?"
And the man replies, "My God ! Don't tell me that you've got golf
clubs in there !"

A retiree was given a set of golf clubs by his
co-workers. Thinking he'd try the game, he asked the local pro for lessons,
explaining that he knew nothing whatever of the game.
The pro showed him the stance and swing, then said, "Just hit the ball
toward the flag on the first green."
The novice teed up and smacked the ball straight down the fairway and onto
the green, where it stopped inches from the hole.
"Now what?" the fellow asked the speechless pro.
"Uh. . . you're supposed to hit the ball into the cup." the pro
finally said, after he was able to speak again. "Oh great! NOW you tell
me." said the beginner in a disgusted tone.

Bud and Rocky, two sky divers having tired of
all the ordinary stunts, decided to set a world record by free-falling to within 100 feet
of the ground before opening their chutes.
They jumped from 8000 feet and came plummeting towards the earth. When his
altimeter read 100, Bud shouted to Rocky, "Now?"
"No, not now!"
"Now?" Bud screamed at 50 feet.
"Not yet!"
"Come on," Bud shrieked, "it's only ten feet!"
"For heaven's sake, Bud," Rocky yelled, "haven't you ever
fallen from ten feet before?"

I WAS sitting on the beach with my niece's two young sons
while their mother was gathering shells in the distance. Suddenly, the serenity was
shattered by the frantic screams of a young girl on a surfboard, who was being carried out
to sea by the current. In a split second the boys were in the surf, swimming after
the terrified girl. In no time they had her safely back on shore. I was so
proud of their selfless action that on their mother's return I told her what had happened,
adding, "You should have seen them, you would have been so proud too."
"Oh!" she exclaimed. Then, after a pause, added, "That's their
surfboard."

LAST year, my husband purchased two season tickets to our
city's football team games. Our teenage son, Sean, and I took turns going to the
games with my husband. When the top team in the league came to play, we had quite a
discussion about who was going to use the ticket. Sean said, "Mom, these are
family tickets, right?" I agreed. "Well," he said, "I was
born into this family; you only married into it."

TO MY surprise, my 40-year-old husband decided to join our
daughter Laurel in taking roller skating lessons. After their first session, Laurel
bubbled over with descriptions of "scissors" and "T-stops."
"The T-stops are the hardest," she proclaimed. "And what did you find
the hardest?" I asked my husband. "The floor," he moaned,
"the floor."

WHEN the avid golfer arrived in Hades, he was overjoyed to
find himself on the most beautiful course he'd ever seen. Grabbing a complete set of
top-line pro clubs sitting next to the first tee, he gleefully asked Satan, "Where
are the balls?" Replied his host with a leer, "There isn't a single one in
the whole place - that's the hell of it!"

WE WERE on the road trailering horses to a show
and rain was falling as we pulled into a gas station at 5 a.m. to fill up. "Where are
you going with those horses?" the man at the next pump asked. "To a show,"
I answered.
"You horse people must be crazy, going to something like that in this
kind of weather," he commented.
"What brings you out so early on such a nasty day?" I asked.
"I'm going fishing," he said.

OUR local ice rink organized a "Powder
Puff" hockey league for women whose husbands and children played. With delusions of
grandeur, my team decided to call themselves Hat Tricks - the term used when the same
player scores three goals in one game. Then our bright red jerseys arrived from the
printer with a typo in the word Hat.
To our acute embarrassment, we skated out for our first game as the 17 Hot
Tricks.

ON A beautiful sunny day, I set out with five
other young women to go water-skiing on a nearby lake. After launching our boat, we
skimmed around and stopped in the middle of the lake to get ready for skiing. The
motor failed to start again, however, and we were stranded.
After we had drifted for a couple of hours, a fisherman finally came by and
noticed our plight. He pulled alongside our boat and attached a towline. As
we headed for shore, he looked back at the six of us, all clad in bikinis, and exclaimed,
"Wait till my wife sees this catch!"

AFTER the fishermen had returned from their
day's outing, family and friends gathered round to discuss their luck. As the catches were
compared, Grandpa, whose luck was usually poor, came in for some teasing.
"Aw, come on, Grandpa!" one person said. "You didn't catch
those fish. You know you bought them at the supermarket." All of Grandpa's protests
to the contrary were ignored until a daughter-in-law finally came to his rescue. "I
believe him," she said. "I know he caught them himself."
A beaming Grandpa unwarily asked her to tell everyone why she believed him.
"They don't sell fish that small in the supermarket," she answered.

AFTER the end of an amateur
league football
game, my friend Roy was waiting for a pause in traffic so he could pull his car out of the
parking lot. He had been the referee, and was still dressed in his uniform. As he was
waiting, a car turned into the driveway, swung out a bit too far and plowed into his rear
fender.
Roy jumped from the car, blew a loud shriek on his whistle, and threw down a
yellow penalty flag in front of their crumpled fenders.

MY SISTER, a poor bowler, was talked into
joining a Friday night league. "Well, how did you do?" I asked her after her
first outing.
"I got one strike," she said, sighing, "but they wouldn't let
me count it. It wasn't in my lane."

MY HABIT of watching Monday night football games
alone was enriched one night when I was joined by our 17-year-old house guest,
Geraldeen.
She knew little about football, but peppered me with questions throughout the evening.
Late in the close and exciting game, with his team behind, the quarterback
jogged to the side line. As he approached the bench, an assistant handed him the telephone
used to confer with spotters high in the stands.
By now Geraldeen was getting more involved. It was with some impatience that
she turned to me and said, "Who would ever call him at a time like this!"

MY WIFE is a newcomer to North America, and I
was trying to explain baseball to her while we watched a game on television. As the camera
panned across the players and coaches, each had a wad of chewing tobacco in his bulging
cheek.
I saw my wife wince in disgust as, one by one, they turned and spit tobacco
juice on the ground. "Well," she said finally, "now I understand why they
slide when they come to the bases."

MY HUSBAND'S ski instructor was the exacting sort. On the
slopes one day, he admonished his class to duplicate his moves precisely. He continued the
harangue, even as he confidently started off downhill without looking. The moment the
instructor turned to see where he was going, he encountered a descending line of
eight-year-olds on skis. The only way the instructor could avoid a collision was to pick
up the first child in the line and continue downhill. So each of the adult students in
turn started down the slope, plucking one child each along the way. At the trail's end all
the children were safely deposited, and the instructor, now wholly abashed, called it
quits for the day.

A BAD TEMPERED golfer was advised by his
psychiatrist to golf, but without a ball. He was to imagine hitting every shot.
The golfer tried it, and it worked.
A few days later he met another golfer and they decided to play a round. The
bad tempered golfer warned his new acquaintance of his unusual style of game, but the
acquaintance said everything was all right because that was how he played too. After 17
holes, each had made 17 straight birdies and the match was tied.
"I'm really going to let out some shaft on this drive," said the
bad tempered golfer. And he did, hitting a 400-yard drive on the par-five final hole.
"I'm really going to belt this one too," said the acquaintance. And
he also hit a 400-yard drive.
The bad tempered golfer studied his second shot carefully and planned to hit
an eight iron with a slight hook. The ball would bounce on the green twice, he said, and
then dive into the hole -- which it did -- for a double eagle.
"Beat that," he turned and said to his acquaintance.
"I already have," came the reply.
"You hit the wrong ball."

MY FATHER is an avid football fan. During a
recent season his team got off to a poor start, and almost every Saturday afternoon Dad
sat ranting at the TV screen. One day, after shouts of disgust, silence fell. Puzzled, my
mother went into the living room to find him quietly watching a World War II movie.
"I just switched over to something that I knew our side would win!"
Dad explained.